Haven
by Neko Kuroban
Summary: What was it about the lake on Naboo?


_Note: I tried to make Padme's recollections sound nostalgic; sorry if it bugs. _

**HAVEN**

Do you even remember?

Do you recall the sunsets on the lake, the gold shimmering light flickering over the dark, still water? The sky was bathed with the colors of roses – scarlet and pink – and touches of sugar-spun gilt; like real gold, only more precious since it was ours. And your eyes were soft and your smile true, even as I frowned and said that if we could touch the sky, I was sure the gold would only be foil and crumple at our touch, our pretty love-struck illusions shattering.

Is it too much like your dreams, darling; too similar to the saccharine veil enfolding our fairy tale? Or is it too close to the furious mist, bloodied and scarlet, of your hot anger?

The grass smelt of eternal summer and peaceful days that would last (see us through time). Remember the overgrown meadow beneath our weeping willow where we had both carved our names? The grass was dry and bits of it snarled and tangled in my long hair, but the riverbank was lush and vibrant and alive and it was ours.

We never even dared to imagine then that others could love quite as we did. Not as intently, as passionately, as fully, as completely, as… obsessively? Possessively? Perhaps. In those days you were mine and mine only. To share? I couldn't fathom the thought. You loved so much, yet perhaps you received too little.

I remember your breathing, soft and steady and wonderful: shallow little breaths as your heart skipped and beat, like the emotions you felt were too strong, too intense. I remember our moments of spontaneity. Laughter. The sparkle of crystal clear water, glistening in our afternoon light. A perfect embrace; I couldn't remember what wonderful, beautiful, ecstatic delirium came over me, but my arms were tight around your neck and legs around your hips and you held me gently and we were content and it was brilliant, wonderful and above all, ours. And I laughed and told you, but you insisted that you felt more. You said I was lovely, and I said you were gorgeous, sunlit and striking. You laughed and grinned, (I think you said something then, something wistful and true), but all I can remember is the look in your dancing blue eyes, the color of the clear blue sky that stretched above us where anything was possible.

I suppose it's only fitting that we were torn from our Eden. Now your dreams aren't the lazy summer fantasies we shared the nights we bonded. I can't help but to wonder if it is fading, or if it's my suspicions that make me wonder if you mean that you don't every single time you say you do. But I do know that my heaven was also you heaven, and it's become our paradise; our idyllic land far away, where we were happy and I was laughing and the sun set and turned the sky into lavender gauze, and the moon was silver, casting the grass in a pearly glow. You told me that your heart was mine, but I had already known that, knew that I held your love as effortlessly as I wore the carved pendant you gave me so long ago. And in those serene days, it was evident.

We shared the retreat on the lake – and what an ironic name; it was our haven, where our love was the only thing tangible and everything else was a light, airy spring mist that would suddenly halt. The staff had long left; there was no one but us and I do not think we were ever apart for more than a few minutes. Hours became pleasure-filled days in the splayed fingers of my four-poster. We would easily fall into the rhythms of each others bodies and lounge around in bed afterward. We shared silk sheets and comforting silences, as well as gentle touches, and bad holo-dramas in the middle of the day, and wine and strawberries and overpriced chocolates-- rich, dark, and bitter.

That was then. Now, you're staring at me, and I'm trying to smile and…

We're not the same. We're different (than we were before). You've traded in your genuine effulgence for (a thin patina of) false bravado, and I…

(_I never imagined things would be like this_.)


End file.
